Exporting highlights to file in Viewer on Windows 10 is not working

[danshand84]

Hello,

I am not able to export highlights to file from the Viewer on Windows 10. I am clicking Export (from bottom of Highlights panel), then Save to File. After finding the folder to save to and clicking Save, I get this error: Full file name is shown, then, 'File not found. Check the file name and try again.'

It is trying to find the file name, that you are trying to create as a new file, to contain the exported highlights.

This happens for all 3 formats.

Copy to clipboard works. I confirmed with the plain text format, by pasting the clipboard contents into a new .txt file.

The Export, Save to file used to work fine with my Windows 10 laptop, but is now not working.

Thank you.

[kovidgoyal]

Works fine for me on my windows 11 machine. Make sure you are using a normal folder not some virtual or networked or similar folder as the destination.

[danshand84]

Thanks for your quick reply. I am trying to save to normal files, not virtual, networked, etc. I always get the error on my windows 10 machine now. Never got it before. The last time I saved highlights was 9/17/23 and it worked fine.

Since the error is complaining that it 'can't find the filename', I tried saving when a file of the same name actually does exist (in this case highlights.txt). In that case, I get this message: Confirm Save As. highlights.txt already exists. Do you want to replace it? Then after clicking Yes button, I get this error: Error: Unhandled exception. OSError:[Errno 69] Bad file descriptor.
With the following under Show detail:
calibre 6.23 embedded-python: True
Windows-10-10.0.19045-SP0 Windows ('64bit', 'WindowsPE')
('Windows', '10', '10.0.19045')
Python 3.10.1
Windows: ('10', '10.0.19045', 'SP0', 'Multiprocessor Free')
Interface language: None
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre\gui2\library\annotations.py", line 280, in save_to_file
OSError: [Errno 9] Bad file descriptor

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre\gui2\library\annotations.py", line 278, in save_to_file
OSError: [Errno 9] Bad file descriptor

[danshand84]

Thanks for your quick reply.

I am trying to save highlights to normal folders, not virtual or networked, etc. I always get the error now when trying to use Export>Save file (from highlights panel), on my Windows 10 machine. But I've used this many time before with no problems (last time was 9/17/23).

[kovidgoyal]

First of all why are you using such an outdated version of calibre, update.

[danshand84]

Hi Kovid,

I didn't realize I was running an old version, but I see now the message at the bottom right. So, I upgraded and retried, and I am having the same problems still.

[DNSB]

If you copy to clipboard and then paste into a text editor/whatever, does that work?

If you launch calibre as administrator, does that allow saving highlight files (basically, is it a rights issue)?

[nqk]

I can export the hightlights in Calibre Viewer alright. However, now the extension is *.calibre_highlights, while it was .json before and if exported by the Content Server Viewer, it is still in .json format.

And the two files have small difference in structure

The one exported by Content Sever Viewer starts with:

{
  "version": 1,
  "type": "calibre_annotation_collection",
  "annotations": [

while the one exported by the Main Viewer starts with:

{
  "highlights": [

Shouldn't they be consistent?

(calibre 7.20.101 - windows 10)

[kovidgoyal]

The reason its different for the content server viewer is that you cant export unknown file types in a browser and that is why the exported JSON has extra metadata at the start to identify what it is.

[danshand84]

DNSB, your solution worked for me. If I run Calibre as Administrator, I can Export highlights and Save to file no problem.

Regrading your question about Save to clipboard, and then paste into Text editor, yes, that has worked all along, and that was how I was working around the problem.

Really appreciate your help!

Dan